With easy-to-use controls, an innovative Live View system with an excellent tilting LCD, the 14.2-megapixel Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 has some nice features that make it stand out from the increasingly crowded entry-level D-SLR space. The biggest problem with this camera is that you can get the nearly identical 10.2MP A300 for $200 less, which makes the A350 a bit of a tough sell. Is the bump in resolution worth the extra cash? I'm not wholly convinced, but for those who need it for extra-large prints, the A350 will do a great job.

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Sony is offering the A350 in a few different packages. You can opt for the body alone for $799 or purchase the camera with one of two lens kits. The SAL-1870 DT 18mm-to-70mm f3.5-to-f5.6 lens (35mm equivalent: 27mm-to-105mm) costs $900 (body and lens), and the SAL-55200 DT 55mm-to-200mm f4-to-f5.6 (35mm equivalent: 82.5mm-to-300mm) lens and camera will run you $1,100 (body and lens).

The A350 has a rubber grip that fits easily in the hand, and at 1.5 pounds (without lens but with battery and CompactFlash card) it isn't quite the behemoth that the 2-pound Olympus E-3 is, yet it still has a nice solid feel. The A350's button layout is effective, and I like the convenience of the slider switch that turns Live View mode on and off, but more quick-access buttons for frequently used settings would have been a nice addition. Sony does provide a neat little function button that, through a series of presses, displays a host of menu options on the LCD, including white balance, metering, and autofocus modes. Overall, ergonomics coupled with simple controls and a straightforward menu system makes this camera one of the easier-to-use D-SLRs I've encountered.

The A350 features plenty of shooting options, which can be accessed via the mode dial atop the camera. You'll find auto, manual, aperture, and shutter-speed modes along with six additional scene modes. Unlike prosumer models such as the Nikon D300, which doesn't offer preset scene modes, the A350 should provide a nice segue for the point-and-shoot graduate who's moving into D-SLRs. I found the program mode to be particularly helpful. It sets the exposure automatically but leaves the other settings open to tweak, just as in many point-and-shoot cameras.

Often with D-SLRs, the LCD seems to be an afterthought. Here, however, the display is the centerpiece: With its tilting ability and innovative Live View mode, it's one of the better displays I've used. Typically, D-SLRs flip the internal mirror up to provide a live view, and then flip it down to shoot the image; this is what the Nikon D300 does, for example. Sony takes a different approach, using a Pentamirror Tilt mechanism to direct light to a dedicated live view sensor, thereby eliminating the delay in shooting that occurs while the mirror is moving into place. Shooting in Live View on this camera is just as fast as with the optical viewfinder. I really like the articulating LCD: It can be moved around and tilted up and down for unique shooting angles, adding more flexibility when you can't use the optical viewfinder. One small issue with Live View: Some minor clipping occurs when framing a shot through the LCD, so what you see isn't the final image. Coverage is about 91 percent of the frame in Live View, while the optical viewfinder gives you 95 percent coverage.

One feature that helps to set Sony apart from Nikon and Canon is in-camera image stabilization. Super SteadyShot, as Sony calls this feature, is easy to turn on and off with a slider on the back of the camera. With a 9-point system, autofocus was fast whether I was in Live View or using the optical viewfinder. It wasn't as fast as on the Olympus E-3, but it could still catch moving subjects. Sony also adds a dynamic range optimizer (DRO) with standard and advanced options. With the standard option turned on, the camera will optimize the entire image and compensate for shadows and contrast, whereas the advanced option will assess each area of the image and apply DRO where necessary. On the whole, details in shadows became much more visible and brightened up the picture significantly.

To test a camera's ability with low-light shots, I generally shoot test images in a dimly lit bar or restaurant. While noise was present starting at ISO 800, I found it to be acceptable until about ISO 1600. Pictures became unusable as I approached the maximum setting of 3200. Still, these are good results for an entry-level D-SLR.

Image quality was excellent overall. In the labs, daylight shots were exceptional, with accurate color and good consistency. Outdoors, color was on-point and vivid, and I found little or no purple fringing in shots of tree branches. Flash shooting was just okay; I noted overexposure in some images and an inconsistency in flash shots as a whole.

While very speedy, the A350 isn't quite on a par with the Nikon D300 or Olympus E-3. But with a boot-up time of 1.2 seconds and a recycle time of 1.4 seconds, you'll have no trouble firing off successive shots. On our resolution test, the A350 scored below average for a 14.2MP camera, with an average of 2,000 lines of resolution. I didn't notice a tremendous loss of detail in images, however, and most shots were fine. The camera supports CF Type 1 and Type 2 cards in addition to Memory Stick, and since CF cards are much faster and have greater storage capacity, it's a nice switch for Sony.

The Sony A350 is an easy-to-use D-SLR that works well and provides great image quality. The only catch is that for $200 less you can get the 10.2MP A300, a nearly identical camera. Still, if higher resolution is important to you, the A350 is sure to please.

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